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split tank for cichlids

I have a 75 gallon tall planted tank with common easy freshwater fellows. I wanted a cichlid tank, but I also wanted a well planted tank; the planted won the decision. The plants and inhabs are doing fine.

But I still yearn for a dwarf cichlid community tank. I got the idea to split the 75 gallon tank in the middle, plants and common community to the left, rocks and dwarf cichlid community to the right, with a Hamburg Mattenfilter (HMF) separating the two. My existing two Emperor 380 filters would remain on each side of the HMF also. The HMF would be constructed with two foams to make filter maintenance possible while retaining segregation. That leaves me with two options. a small HMS sump between the two filter foams, or consider one side of the divided tank to be the HMS sump.

I am looking for comments from persons familiar with splitting a tank and/or use of HMF filters.

What types of chichlids are you looking to get? If you are looking for Africans it will not work due to the very different water requirements of the plants and general community versus the cichlids. Having only half of a 75 gallon to work with you will have to count out any of the larger South Americans as well. If you are going for apistos, rams, keyholes, angels and the like, they would be perfectly fine in a planted community but otherwise I would either pick just one to do or get another tank.

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You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.

'Africans' is a generalization. There are Africans that fit in planted tanks. Pelvicachromis, Teleogramma, and Steatocranus genera are well worth looking at, and are just as easy to keep in a planted tank (true, they might dig, but only if breeding).

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